My fitness journey! The good, the bad, and the chocolate!

Happy Friday friends!
Been a little quiet this week on here and social media. I have been working my little tail off getting ready for The Boho Market this weekend up in Dallas at Fair Park! If you are in Dallas/Ft. Worth this weekend, come on out and get some of your holiday shopping done! There are going to be 100 vendors with lots of AMAZING items!

Speaking of holidays, I had a little Christmas party last weekend and got to experiment making some gluten free holiday treats for myself and my friends! I really wanted to make a gluten free sugar cookie recipe with my fav GF flour. I was honestly nervous about how it would work out.

This week I am linking up with Farrah from Fairyburger, Annmarie from the Fit Foodie Mama, and Jess from Hello to Fit for a Copycat themed week!I took a recipe I found from All Recipes and altered it a tad to make it gluten free.
Over the years I have tried many different sugar cookie recipes, and I have to say, this one I used with the alterations came out the best!
There is something about rolling out dough with the marble rolling pin from childhood and making cookies in some of my favorite Christmas shapes. I have a bit of a cookie cutter collection. I love making cookies and I am so happy to have such a great gluten free recipe to use now!Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

Hello friends! Happy 1st Friday in December! This is my favorite time of year! Something magical and special and all the twinkling lights make my heart so happy. Over the past few days the Hubs and I set up 2 trees and sprinkled other decorations all around the house. I found the AMAZING sign at my local Hobby Lobby and it brings joy to my heart each time we light it up!Our cute little trees

Some of my new fav ornaments

This time of year brings me into the kitchen even more than normal! Can I just say how wonderful it has been to be able to cook and bake in a real kitchen! I am so thankful for our new kitchen and the space it has to allow me to bring joy to others through delicious food!
I have been craving pears lately and earlier this week had a hinkering for a crisp. I decided to put my 2 cravings together and whip up a healthier version of the apple crisp I grew up making. The coconut sugar helps to bring out the natural sugars in the pears without being overly sweet. I really feel I could eat some of this for breakfast in place of my overnight oats and feel good about it🙂

Hello friends and happy Friday!
I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I know we had some delicious food and have so much to be thankful for this year.

Life has been pretty crazy lately between some travels, getting over bronchitis, pet sitting, getting things settled with the hubs new job & car, making plans for an upcoming market I will be selling my homemade beauty products at, settling travel plans for the holidays, studying, and attempting to get rest and workouts in! And I decided last night to have a small holiday party before all the craziness begins!
I have been doing lots of cooking, but not a whole lot of recipe creation (unless you count my first attempt at stuffing that turned out awesome), so I want to bring back some recipes today from earlier this year!

Hi friends!
Happy Friday!
Opps, I just realized I never filled you in on my fun Sweat Pink sister time last weekend and some of the other good things happening. Last weekends shenanigans will have to wait just a bit, but here are a few fun things that went on this week!

My attempt at getting pics of the super moon!

Enjoyed a little Thanksgiving feast at the kiddos school🙂Finally got in a few workouts after begin sick all last week.

Made some homemade bird feeders for the back yard! Kids had a blast and ate more peanut butter than we used for the feeders! HahaMade a hoot of a fruit tray for my small group🙂

Speaking of fruit, it is national vegan month. Despite so much focus being on turkey recipes, I have seen a lot of yummy vegan recipes from some of my fellow blogger friends! (Will post a few soon)
For my meat loving friends, this recipe really was filling, flavorful, and added lots of color to the plate!

Hi there friends!
Greetings from San Antonio! Here for a girls weekend with 2 of my favorite Sweat Pink girls! Check out Instagram to follow our fun times🙂
So here is a short and sweet (or actually spicy) recipe to get your weekend off on a kick!
I also have a fun tip to share with you about how I make the perfect hard boiled egg! I am linking up with Farrah from Fairyburger, Annmarie from the Fit Foodie Mama, and Jess from Hello to Fit for our spicy themed week!

Spicy Avocado Eggs

Ingredients

4 eggs

water (to boil eggs)

1/2 avocado

1/4 tsp pink salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp (plus more to top finished eggs) paprika

1 tsp sriracha sauce

ice cubes

Directions

Place eggs in a sauce pan, cover with water.

Bring water to a boil and cook eggs for 8 minutes.

Remove pan from heat and fill pan with cold water for 1-2 min or until the water in the pan remains cool.

Place ice cubes in the pan and let them melt. (This helps the eggs peel really easily!)

Peel eggs.

Slice eggs lengthwise.

Pop out the yolks and put in a med size bowl.

Add in avocado and spices and sriracha sauce, mix together well.

Place yolk mixture in a ziplock bag. Trim a small hole in one of the corners.

Squeeze even amounts of the yolk mixture into the egg whites.

Sprinkle additional paprika and/or sriracha sauce on top.

Enjoy!

Make sure you check out all the amazing ladies and their awesome mouthwatering recipes!!

Happy Friday friends!
Another week is coming to a close! We have ventured into a new month, and the beginning of several of my favorite holidays! This time of year seems to be filled non-stop with sweets, desserts, drinks and food galore! Do not fret, this time of year can be enjoyed even with so many indulgences staring you in the face. This week we have designed some yummy treats to keep you on track this holiday season while still enjoying some treats!

I also have to say that I have been really enjoying working on some new recipes for you all! And it gets a little messy at times, but that is part of the fun!

Hello friends!
I can not believe it is already November!! I feel like yesterday was October. Well, yesterday WAS October, but I mean it feels like it was just the beginning of October! The holiday months are officially here and I have a feeling it is going to get a bit more crazy! My goals for October were a little hit and miss, so I am choosing to aim for similar goals for November.
The month is off on a bit of a interesting start. I woke up convinced it was Wednesday, and I left the house with my sippers on…SO there is that!
October def had its challenges with life. We lost one of my aunts, one of the hubs’ cousins, several different car issues (several flat tires on different cars, the truck just at the end of it’s rope), my knee and neck injury, and a few random family health issues happened too.
I am just ready for a month of gratefulness and delightful time with those I love!

Here is what happened in October!

October Goals

1. Meet daily step goal – I met it pretty much every day, only missed 4 days this month. 2. Combat/pump 2-3 times a week – I managed this except the week I injured my neck. 3. 7-8 hours of sleep – My average the first few week or so was a little under 7 hours, but then bumped up the last few weeks.

4. Hydration goal daily – This was a HUGE challenge for some reason. I def need to step it up this month. 5. 4-6 date nights – We got in 3 official date nights and a few at home where we put away our phones and spent time together. 6. Have 4 or more friend get-togethers – This happened 5 times!

7. Reintroduce running 2 times a week – This goal did not happen. The first week I injured my knee and had a massive bruise on it, and then I pulled a muscle in my neck. This is another goal to aim for in November 8. Read 30-60 min daily – This happened a few times a week 9. Study 1-2 hours a day (this is gonna be the largest challenge) – So yeah…this didn’t really happen :( I only managed about 20 min the entire month. I HAVE to jump on this with no excuses. 10. Sunday (or Monday when I’m out of town) meal prep. I did this about 3 times this month. 11. 15 min of self care per day and 1 long weekly self care activity (bath, pedi, etc) – I was a little hit and miss with this, but more than not I was able to get some self care most days.

12. Establish blog as a .com (eek I have no clue what I’m doing here…any advice appreciated!)– I WAS able to establish my domain! I still have a lot of work to do on the blog, but it is getting there. More changes to come this month as time allows!

Unpack 2-3 boxes a week (yes, we still have way too many boxes in the garage)

Decrease inches again.

Don’t get too caught up in the holidays and take time to rest!

Grateful challenge

Speaking of the grateful challenge, I am challenging myself to continue to keep a grateful heart no matter what is happening in my life. I will be posting each day on Instagram what I am grateful for that day! Feel free to join the fun!

Do you have any goals this month?
Feel free to join the grateful challenge on Instagram- use #AlwaysGrateful in your daily pics.

I am a mother who likes to create fun, delicious, and healthy foods to fuel my active family. Sharing my creations on my blog, as a hobby, as I go. Any brands stated in my recipes are just for reference as to what I used, unless otherwise stated as such I am not compensated for using stated brands.